The Voice of the Martyrs' blog, sharing powerful stories and timely information that invites and inspires American Christians into fellowship with their persecuted family around the world.

Posts categorized "India"

April 17, 2017

When God called Leanna to missions she was a young woman fresh out of college. Then God specifically called her to a part of South Asia known as "the graveyard of missionaries." He led her down a different path from most foreigners at the time; Leanna lived in a village, drinking dirty water, sleeping on a grass mat and subsisting on lentils and rice. As she lived through the hardships of village life she was able to introduce people to a God greater and more powerful than the millions of Gods in their faith: Jesus Christ.

Listen as Leanna shares about how Jesus is reaching people in South Asia with demonstrations of His power, and how believers are persevering in spite of persecution and hardship. She’ll also advise American believers how to reach out to those we know with the gospel, and equip us to pray for more than a billion people who live in South Asia.

March 14, 2017

What would you do if a group of angry young men came streaming into your Sunday School class this Sunday, faces masked and swinging clubs as they came?

Aaron Miller helps lead VOM’s work in South Asia, including the nation of India, where he previously served full-time as a gospel worker. Listen this week as Aaron shares what happened when he found himself at a Christian gathering in India that was attacked by radical Hindus. It was a small taste of persecution that was a part of God’s preparation for Aaron to serve persecuted Christians in India and other South Asian nations.

It was also a blessing. Even as he was being slapped and kicked, Aaron says God gave him a sense of His presence, His blessing. Listen below to have your faith inspired, and hear specific ways to pray for the nation of India and our spiritual family there.

May 10, 2016

The prayer focus for Secret Church this year was on the nation of India. Why choose India? India’s 1.2 billion people include members of all of the world’s major religions, and the country also been a hotspot for Christian persecution in recent years.

The rise in persecution at the hands of Hindu nationalists is related in part to the nationalists’ perceived fears of “loosing” India. They see Christianity spreading and offering hope to people trapped in a caste system. They see the gospel giving Indians a way to know God by his grace only, not by works.

Please pray with us for India. Believers there know to expect persecution. Pray that they will remain bold. Pray that they will stay faithful during persecution, and that they would share the gospel with their neighbors without fear. Pray for good teaching and good leadership to help train new believers in their faith, so they grow deep roots that will sustain them in difficult times.

And pray for the persecutors: members of government, community members and family members, who make things difficult for new believers. Pray that the Holy Spirit opens their eyes to the truth about Hinduism and to the goodness of our loving God. We’ve heard many testimonies about Hindu extremists who’ve been completely changed through Jesus; pray for more of these conversions.

Dory P. has worked with VOM for nine years. Dory tells the stories of the persecuted through VOM's newsletter, and her husband serves in VOM's international department. Between Dory, her husband, five-year-old son and two-year-old daughter, the family shares seven passports, though they know their ultimate citizenship is in heaven.

October 30, 2015

This Sunday churches around the world will be praying for our persecuted brothers and sisters as part of the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Many of those churches will share the story of Suta, a story that reminds us to pray not only for persecuted Christians, but for their persecutors as well.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you" ~Matthew 5:43-44

Here is Suta's story. Learn more and find downloadable resources to help you and your church or Sunday School class pray at www.Persecution.com/IDOP.

But making films inside hostile and restricted nations isn’t easy. Behind each film is a story of how God put things together, sometimes even when it seemed the entire shoot would be blocked.

God has opened locked doors for our film-making team. They have told stories of persecuted Christians from all over the world. Their work has blessed tens of thousands of Christians, but these stories also change the storytellers.

May 04, 2015

Is it easy to reach Muslims with the message of salvation through Christ? No. But Prem Kumar says, “We believe in the power of the gospel.”

Prem is training church planters and sending out gospel workers all over South Asia…including some of the region’s most difficult areas. This week on VOMRadio he tells us how they prepare those workers to face persecution without losing their faith, and about the challenges they are facing and how they overcome. He also shares ideas for reaching out to Muslims, and help us pray more effectively for missionaries working on the front lines.

September 10, 2014

Many American churches have abandoned the practice of "Prayer Meetings," weekly gatherings of believers to seek the Lord and lift up the needs of their congregation and the world. But prayer meetings to lift up persecuted Christians are still happening every week among believers from all over the world—online.

It has been almost a year since VOM launched www.iCommitToPray.com, an online prayer meeting on behalf of persecuted believers around the world. Each week a new request is posted for a Christian in a hostile or restricted nation, and readers are invited to post their prayer for that need.

New visitors are called to pray, and encouraged by the prayers they see on the site that have already been offered up for this need. The site is also accessible INSIDE these hostile and restricted nations, so Christians there can log on and see the prayers being offered up on their behalf. This allows them to be encouraged as they see others praying for them, and it allows them to connect with and pray for believers facing persecution in other nations.

This week visitors are praying for "Kollol" and his family, Christians in India:

"Kollol" and his wife were attacked by 15 radical Hindus during a June 4 prayer meeting in their home. The couple were beaten and then dragged to a Hindu temple, where they were forced to undergo a ritual cleansing. The Hindus poured water on them to symbolize outward cleansing and put red powder on their foreheads to mark them as devout Hindus. When the Hindus force-fed the couple with food sacrificed to idols, Kollol's two teenage daughters protested. They were then beaten, too, and they were all later treated at a hospital. Community members evicted the family from the village, threatening to kill them if they return.

Will you join with more than 350 Christians in 30 nations in prayer for this family? Add your voice to the international online prayer meeting on their behalf at www.iCommitToPray.com.

August 20, 2014

Recent remarks by Indian political figures have underscored a growing Hindus-only attitude in India. And while the situation for Christians there may grow more difficult, it’s encouraging to know that God can and is working in the hearts of those who are active persecutors of Christians. And VOM workers in the region see the potential upcoming events not as something to be feared, but as motivation to reach more people with Christ’s love.

“Ranjay” was an area leader for the Shiv Sena, a radical political group in India which, like the Hindu nationalist RSS group, seeks to establish India as an entirely Hindu country in which no other religious or political organization is welcome. One of Ranjay’s roles was to inform on the Naxalites, a Maoist insurgent group operating in India. After providing information which led to the arrests of a large group of Naxalites, Ranjay learned that he had been given no credit and his reward money was stolen by the police officer he had helped.

Angered and frustrated that he had been cheated, he began doing some soul-searching. As an alcoholic and heavy drug user, nothing seemed to bring satisfaction. It was about this time that he was invited to a prayer meeting.

At the meeting, Ranjay assumed it was a Hindu prayer meeting because a woman in attendance was worshipping a picture of Jesus as though it was one of Hinduism’s 30 million gods. At the meeting, a pastor handed him a New Testament.

“I have read Hindu scriptures, and they left me empty. Why should I believe this book will be any different?” Ranjay asked the man, who told him that the Christian Scriptures contained living words that would change his life. Desperate, Ranjay took the New Testament, and began immediately reading when he got home.

When he read the Great Commission in Matthew 28, Ranjay was struck by Jesus’ claim to have “all authority in heaven and on earth.” He kept thumbing through pages, next landing on Romans 3:10, “There is none righteous, no not one.” Within three weeks, Ranjay had committed his life to Christ and was completely drug free.

He immediately began talking about Christ with others. Now that he understood the true nature of Christ, he wanted to help correct the woman who had been worshipping Jesus’ image. He returned to the home where the prayer meeting had been held and shared the Gospel with the woman who had been worshipping the picture of Jesus. After sharing Christ’s true message with her, the woman was born again into new life in Christ.

Today, Pastor Ranjay maintains his passion to share the message with others and is known for his fearlessness. He has distributed more than 3,000 tracts and over 1,700 New Testaments in his area.Once one who sought out Christians to persecute them, now he must hide from those who want to persecute him. The recent election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the BJP party has only intensified the risk of persecution for Christians, but especially for those who openly share the gospel.

The BJP party is the political party backed by the RSS movement. RSS members are some of the chief persecutors of Christians in India because of their commitment to pursuing a purely Hindu nation. Christians are often forced from their homes, jailed, beaten, or even killed by RSS members.

In spite of the prospect of greater difficulties for Christians in India, VOM workers there have shared that Indian Christians are not worried. As one VOM partner said, “God is in control, not Congress Party or BJP.”

May 12, 2014

In this video shot by VOM staff on a recent visit to India, a pastor shares about the persecutiong that he has faced in his work trying to open a new church in a Hindu-controlled village. But the pastor also shares how some of his fiersest persecutors are now followers of Christ and loyal workers in the church.

Please share this video with your Christian friends and encourage them to pray for Christians in India.